The Man Who Could Not Disappear
by Jeff Fort
Why do we care about the details, large and small, of Kafka’s life?

Reality Hunger: A Manifesto
by David Shields
Celebrating the confusion between field report and self-portrait, and between fiction and nonfiction.

A Brief Take on Genetic Screening
by Richard Powers
Diagnosing the chronic belief that medicine and narrative are inextricably linked.

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The Flesh Failures
by Devin McKinney
Irrestistible arses, and bombs on the dance floor: introducing the worldview of Colin MacInnes.

Fat Fiction
by Rachel Aviv
If overweight people are in fact an oppressed minority, it’s one with only a handful of writer-champions.

Ed Ruscha
interviewed by Christopher Bollen
“It’s fun to paint fire.”

Robyn Hitchcock
interviewed by Lou Anders
Britain’s surrealist rock luminary plays music for the undead.

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Harold Ramis
interviewed by Eric Spitznagel
Harold Ramis wrote and directed Caddyshack, the most important movie of all time.

Alice Quinn
interviewed by Meghan O’Rourke
Editing a volume of Elizabeth Bishop’s uncollected work, drafts, and letters reveals what she suffered to become the poet she became.

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The Second Annual Believer Book Award

El Cobrador Del Frac: Costumed Debt Collectors in Spain
by Andrew Losowsky

Stuff I’ve Been Reading
by Nick Hornby

La Zona Fantasma
by Javier Marías

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Jennifer Michael Hecht’s Funny
reviewed by Stephen Burt

Stacey Levine’s Frances Johnson
reviewed by Jason McBride

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Dubravka Ugrešić’s The Ministry of Pain
reviewed by Sarah Stone

Gu Cheng’s Sea of Dreams
reviewed by Theo Schell-Lambert

Mati Unt’s Things in the Night
reviewed by Thom Blaylock

Kenneth J. Harvey’s The Town That Forgot How to Breathe
reviewed by John Domini

The Partisan Review
reviewed by Robin Hemley

Sedaratives
by Sarah Silverman

Schema: Extra-Nomenclature in Film Credits
by Gary Belsky & Brian McMullen